by Mark Dunn
“We don’t set out to do a lot of things we end up doing,” said Jerry philosophically. Then he and Maggie left the kitchen.
After they were out of earshot, Clara said to Lucille, “Don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Say what?”
“That those boys are bad eggs. I know they’re bad eggs.” Clara put a steaming cup in front of Lucille. “I should make more coffee. You look pale, honey. Are you cold?”
Lucille shook her head. “Ruth said the girls weren’t having anything else to do with them, but then Maggie walks in with this one.”
“Maggie has a forgiving nature,” said Clara. “You’d have to, to have lived with me all these years. Lucille, I don’t like that look on your face. Tell me what’s going on. We’ve all been dealt enough shit over the last several days. Please just tell me something else hasn’t just happened.”
“Maybe nothing’s happened.”
“For God’s sake, Lucille, just say it.”
Lucille nodded. She spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. “Your son—the one you gave away—his name is Jerry. I mean, that’s the name his adoptive family gave him.”
Clara’s eyes widened. “Are you saying there’s a chance the boy upstairs is mine?”
“Ruth said his name is Castle. That isn’t Caster. It’s very similar, but it isn’t the same.”
“You’re right. And this is Bellevenue, and where did Herb say the family moved to?”
“Little Rock. It could just be a coincidence.”
Clara sat down slowly. “I did see something in his eyes that reminded me of John.” Clara shook it off. “This is silly. We’ll just ask him. Maggie, you and Jerry come downstairs. We need to ask you something.”
Clara got up. She went to the coffeemaker again. Neither woman spoke to the other. A sepulchral silence fell over the room. It was broken by the sound of Maggie and Jerry clumping down the wooden stairs in the other part of the house. Maggie entered the kitchen carrying a plastic laundry basket filled with their wet clothes. She was dressed casually in a pink sweatshirt and jeans. Jerry was wearing clothes that had belonged to Maggie’s father, which Clara had never bothered to throw out: an old Memphis State Tigers T-shirt and frayed khakis. He had slick-combed his wet hair back the way John Barton used to when he and Clara had first started dating in college. Clara suppressed a gasp. Lucille, who remembered John from the old days, looked as if she’d just seen a ghost.
“Your last name, Jerry,” said Clara steadily. “Has it always been Castle?”
Jerry shook his head. “It used to be Caster. But I hated it. I changed it.”
Clara grabbed the edge of the table. “I have to ask the two of you something,” Clara went on, now anything but emotionally steady. “You have to be very honest with me. Are you having sex?”
Maggie shrieked. “Mama!”
“I have to know.”
“You don’t have to know. And you certainly don’t have to know right in front of Jerry and Ms. Mobr—”
“She does have to know,” interrupted Lucille. “It’s very important. Tell us if the two of you are sleeping together.”
As Maggie hedged, Jerry stepped in. “Yes, we had sex. One time. An hour ago. Out in the tool shed.”
Clara and Lucille exchanged bug-eyed looks of almost comic-book horror. Picking up on this, Jerry made his case: “I’m sure you’ve heard about the game by now, but the game’s over. You have my word. Mags and I—we did it because we wanted to. I wanted to. She wanted to. She’s white and over twenty-one as they say, and she can do whatever she wants to with her own body, so maybe we can all just drop it, okay?”
Maggie gave her mother a cold stare. “What is wrong with you—I mean, what is wrong with you today?”
“Maggie—Oh God. Maggie, Maggie—Oh my dear God.”
Lucille grabbed Clara’s hand for strength. Then she looked up into the quizzical faces of Maggie and Jerry. To Maggie she said, “Honey-girl. Forgive the language, sweetie, but you just screwed your brother.”
Jerry left without speaking a word.
Lucille volunteered to drive a trembling Maggie to the doctor to get her an ECP. As she and Lucille were walking out the door, Maggie said to her mother, “Please be here when I come back.”
“I will, baby. I will.”
By now the rain had let up and the skies had partially cleared. There was more bad weather headed this way the forecasters said, but not until tomorrow. Jerry got in the car and drove toward Lucky Aces to clean out his locker and pick up his last check. He took a wrong turn and had to double back.
He nearly ran over a dog.
Ruth had made up her mind. Earlier that afternoon, she’d discussed the whole matter with Maggie on the patio. Under a thick canopy of gathering rainclouds, the two drank Frescas and ate Bugles and bean dip, and Ruth had decided this was a good time—given all that had happened—for her to make a major change in her life. She told Maggie about the very last conversation she’d had with Cain. It was over coffee at Harvey Joe’s on the square. Cain had announced to Ruth that he’d decided to make a big change with his own life: he was going to Los Angeles to see if he could get a job working in movies or television or something. All his life he’d loved old movies and wanted to be a movie director.
“But you have to pay your dues,” he’d told Ruth. “You have to start at the bottom and work your way up. I’m young. I’ve got time.”
“What about Pat?” asked Ruth.
Cain had laughed, his eyes registering warm thoughts about the man he loved. “I have this fantasy that I become a big Hollywood director and then I bring Pat out to the coast and ‘discover’ him and he becomes the next Chris O’Donnell.”
“That shouldn’t be your only motivator.”
“Of course not. It’s just one of ’em. So instead of being a casino cocktail waitress, you should do what everybody else in Hollywood does who’s waiting for their big break—you should wait tables on Rodeo Drive. You can slip your screenplays into the briefcases of Hollywood executives when they aren’t looking.”
“How do you know I’d ever want to write movies?”
“You like to write—to write stories, right? Writing film scripts is a way to write stories and get paid obscene amounts of money for them.”
“So what are you saying?”
“What do you think I’m saying? I want you to come out to Hollywood with me.”
Ruth paused to let a little Fresca fizz escape through her nose. Maggie offered her a napkin. “Anyway, I told him I would. Right then and there. That’s why it blew my mind when I found out what he did right after Pat died. I didn’t know he was that obsessed over him. I know we’re all a little crazy—everybody in their own twisted way—but he was smart and he had so much promise, and Mags, you should have heard how he’d go on about things he was passionate about—politics and gay rights and things you’d never think might live inside that brilliant brain of his. And then he does something like this—something so, so, so stupid. Deadly stupid. What the fuck is wrong with people? Why are human beings so fucked up?”
“Don’t ask me, Ruth. My family should be on the cover of Fucked Up magazine.”
“So everybody says Hollywood is this messed-up town and all the really crazy people gravitate there, but you know what? I don’t think Hollywood’s any more messed up than Bellevenue, Mississippi, or Armpit, Minnesota, or any other place. So I’m going out there to write screenplays about messed-up people and see if I can’t make a living at it.”
“What are we gonna do without you?”
“You don’t think we’ll be in touch? For Chrissakes, Mags! Herb and Lucille’ll be tugging me back home for visits on every holiday that has something to do with either Jesus or the Pilgrims, plus ya’ll will all be looking for excuses to come out to L.A. and sleep on my floor, just watch.”
“When are you leaving?”
“As soon as I can. Viv won’t like it. She’s asked me to move in with her twice al
ready.”
“Will you miss her?”
“Of course I will. I really like Viv, you know that. But I don’t like it here. Everybody wandering around, waiting for something to happen and then when something does happen, it’s horror-movie shit. It’s like what those people in London went through during the Blitz.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Well, I’ll tell you: you sit around and drink your tea with nervous hands and talk about puddings and then some German flies over your house and drops a bomb on you. That’s kind of what we got now. Mind-numbing boredom followed by sudden apocalypse and then whoever’s still standing when all the dust settles gets to go right back to being bored again.”
“I think you really are going to make it as a writer, Ruth.”
“Thank you, doll. Do you want to go over to the casino with me? It might be nice to have someone else in the room when I have to drop the arrivederci bomb on Viv.”
Maggie shook her head. “Do you mind if I don’t? It’s so peaceful and quiet out here on the patio. I like watching the way the clouds darken up before a storm. Sometimes I really like storms, Ruth. I like getting blown around by forces that have absolutely nothing to do with human beings. It reminds me that as much as we think we’re in charge of our destinies, we aren’t. We’re just leaves in the wind.”
Ruth got up. She walked over to Maggie and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re just now figuring that out?”
Vivian Colthurst took it better than Ruth thought she would. Partly because Ruth left the window open for Vivian to move out to Hollywood herself if she liked, “maybe after I get myself established. Otherwise, it would be a step down for you, Viv. I know you like your supervisor’s job at the casino and I don’t know how many casinos there are in Southern California, let alone whether you could find another job like the one you have now.”
“I suppose you’re right,” sighed Vivian. “You know what? As a little going-away present, I’m gonna time-clock you in for the next two weeks. That way you’ll have a little extra money for your move.”
“That’s very sweet, Viv, but won’t that get you into trouble with the casino?”
Vivian laughed and shook her head. “With all the money they’re making here? I feel like I work at Fort Knox.”
Will, unlike Jerry, had hung around the casino while payroll prepared his final paycheck, blowing money he didn’t have at the blackjack table. The fleet boss, Mr. Matthews, had gotten word from Ms. Touliatis in Human Resources that several of the gaming floor cocktail waitresses were getting ready to file sexual harassment complaints against the three drivers, and besides, this University of Mississippi frat-boy posse was bad news any way you looked at them. One had just died—actually died!—from injuries he’d gotten from some kind of fight he’d been in, and then his friend, probably high on Angel Dust or something, had jumped to his death out a goddamned window. In Mr. Matthews’ day, the worst you could say about Ole Miss fraternity brothers was that they were lazy. Case in point: they didn’t lift a finger to keep James Meredith from attending classes at the school, preferring, instead, to keep to their frat houses and guzzle beer while the upright white citizens of Oxford (like Matthews) had to do all the rioting on Ole Miss’s behalf.
Ruth was at the casino too. She was in the changing room for female staff. She was alone. It was late afternoon on a weekday—a slow time. Even the geriatrics had already boarded their senior center buses and were headed back to Memphis.
Ruth was pulling out what few things she’d been keeping in her locker. She was putting them in a grocery bag. She wasn’t aware she was being watched. Will stood in the doorway. He coughed. She turned. “You’re not allowed in here,” she said evenly.
“I’m not in there. I’m standing out in the hallway.”
“Please go away or I’ll get a security guard.”
“How are you gonna do that? I’m blocking the door.”
Ruth put a couple of other things into the bag and slammed the locker door shut. She stood next to the bench, staring at Will. Will stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him.
“We’re not going to do this,” she said, still without a trace of emotion.
“Do what?”
“You know what. Take one more step and I’m screaming my lungs out. I have big lungs.”
“Of course you do. You’re a fat pig.”
“What are you? Ten fucking years old?”
“I have a knife.”
“Show me the knife and I start screaming.”
“I can do a lot of cutting before somebody gets here.”
Ruth expelled a large volume of air through her nose. “That’s the biggest problem I have with men. They’re so fucking, fucking predictable. Whenever anything bugs them, whenever they don’t get their way, they just summon their inner caveman and go ugga-chugga atavistic on everybody’s asses. It gets old real fast, Billy.”
“So then you do think I have something to be upset about.”
“I’m sure you do. It all fell apart, didn’t it? That goddamned game of yours. Two of your friends are dead. I can’t even get my brain around that. The five of you—you all came from good families. You had your tickets written and you screwed it all up because men do that, don’t they? Men never grow up. Mentally and emotionally, they don’t seem to get very far beyond the fifth grade.”
Will grinned. “Oh, that’s me, right?”
“To a tee, Hur-ca-lees. You come in here with your tighty-whities all in a wad because I got you fired from this stupid casino that you didn’t much enjoy working for anyway, but you’re still gonna find some way to take your revenge. What are you thinking about doing, Billy Boy? Are you gonna try to rape me like your friend Tommy raped Jane? Are you gonna cut me all up with that secret knife of yours? Will this make you feel better? What do you want to do?”
“Hurting you sounds like a good plan.”
Ruth walked up to Will. She placed herself directly in front of him. “I’ll tell you what you can do—to get this out of your system. You can slap me. Show me who’s boss. Slap my chubby lady cheek and then feel good about yourself.”
“I just might. I just might slap the fat pig that went wee-wee-wee all over my friends and me.”
Ruth sighed. “They were never your friends, Will. You—none of you—you don’t know the definition of the word ‘friends.’ A lot of men are this way; do you deny it? Self-centered bastards who can’t see beyond their own selfish needs.”
“Men sacrifice themselves for other men all the time. Cops. Firemen. Soldiers during times of war.”
“Some men. The good men. But the two good men in your little band of brothers are both dead. All that’s left are the dregs.”
“And you’re a conniving, malicious bitch.”
“So slap the bitch. But here’s the thing: I get to slap you back. Because Tommy did rape my friend Jane, and you were probably just fine with it. It’s the same thing you wanted to do to all of us, wasn’t it? To compensate for your little pencil dicks.”
Will smiled his crooked smile. “Well, you pretty much summed it up there, didn’t you?”
“Give me your best shot. It won’t be any more painful than the slaps those two tract house witches used to give me when I was five. But get yourself ready. Because I intend to give back as good as I get.”
They stared at one another for a moment and then Ruth took a deep breath, scrunched in her shoulders and shut her eyes.
Ruth wasn’t bluffing.
Will took this as his opening. He slapped her. It wasn’t a hard slap, but it made a loud pop. And it smarted. Ruth rubbed her reddened check. Then she pulled back and delivered a much more robust open-handed smack to Will’s face.
He waited a moment.
Then he reciprocated.
It went on like this: back and forth—mechanical, without emotion—like two little hinged figurines in lederhosen on a Bavarian clock. Will wasn’t going to stop until he felt Ruth had been properly pun
ished. Ruth wouldn’t stop unless the two of them ended even.
As this was going on Jerry opened the door to the changing room. He thought he had walked into the men’s changing room. Jerry Castle was in a daze.
Will, whose turn it was, paused, his hand poised in the air, and looked at Jerry. Jerry walked over to the bench on the other side of the room and sat down, his gaze unfocused, his look blank, indecipherable.
Will and Ruth resumed, Jerry watching with empty eyes, not really registering.
Thirty minutes earlier, Lyle had succeeded in getting some important information out of a friend who worked the craps tables at Lucky Aces. It turned out that a number of the casino’s employees lived in the same newly built condominium complex about three miles from the casino.
“I need the number for the unit where several of the van drivers live. I want to drop off some cookies my sister made.”
“How come Jane never makes cookies for me?” Lyle’s friend teased.
“I don’t know, Greg. She don’t make them for me neither.”
“I don’t have the unit number, but I can tell you where they live. They use the pool a lot, and I see them going in and out of one of the apartments next to it. Their door’s downstairs and all the way to the left when you’re standing with your back to the pool gate.”
“Thanks, Greg. I’ll tell Jane to bake you some cookies sometime.”
“Chocolate chip.”
“You got it.”
Lyle hung up and went straight for his pickup. He drove over to the condominium complex. From the cab of his truck he could see the unit that interested him, but there were children playing in front.
Lyle waited. He finished his Big Mac. After a few minutes the kids were called home.
There was a young woman in a deck chair sunning herself next to the pool. Lyle waited until she went inside, until the pool and the area around it was empty.
Until there were no witnesses.
Then he got out of the cab. He went up to the door to which he’d been directed. He gave it a strong kick. It was a cheap door. It was a cheap, poorly built condo thrown up in a few weeks to house transient casino workers, and the door was no problem.
